Alone with your thoughts
by Lissibith
Summary: The past is something Wormtail can't change - but neither can he forget.


Entry must be specifically made for this contest

Done for a Hogwartselite fic, with a challenge to write a second-person fic. As usual, I own nothing of Harry Potter and its world.

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You hear the voice, hear what it tells you to do, but for an instant, in your mind, there is hesitation. It's not enough to translate to your action – to the fall of your arm, the gesture of your wand, the shape of your mouth as you form the proper words. The spell goes off, as expected, but in your mind, there is that pause. That fear. That knowledge that were your friends hereto see you, they might not even manage true hate. They would only manage to pity you, and perhaps feel disgust at what you have done.

The spell is cast and the tall lad from Hogwarts falls to the ground. His body, now an accent of color against the bleaknesss of the cemetery, lies next to another student, this one crouched and quivering in pain. This one you know. This one…

You drag him up, place him against the tombstone, bind him. Your stomach churns with acid, with the bitterness of grief and regret that you must not show. You know what is going to happen – to him, to you, to the world. You know, and you don't want to let it continue. But you do. You have to. You need to follow the bidding of your master. There is only what you need.

What you want ceased to matter long ago.

Right now, there is only the plan, the pattern, the orders. Right now there is only bringing your master back to life – the master who belittled and used you so many times in the past, and who promises to do so again, and again, until your body simply cannot sustain you anymore. The only sustaining thought, fragile as it is, fragile as a butterfly on the cusp of the first frost, is that through Him, you may attain some warped form of immortality. Let them judge you when part of you lives on long after they've all been forgotten by a dark and fading world.

Again, it's a kind of cold comfort, but a comfort no less.

At least after this, the Master will have a body again, and Harry Potter, the source of this all, the cause of so much of your trouble… soon he will be gone, so much blood and bone, a mass of flesh without breath or spirit. You do your best to avert your eyes from the doomed as you go about your preparations. It is… unnerving to look into his face. That face. That's James' face. You know it well. It haunts the dark behind your eyelids every night. It's twisted in an expression of confusion and fear. Echoed in that face, you imagine HIS, that night as it must have looked, as he sent his wife and child to run while he tried to face down the Dark Lord.

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bHouse/b Ravenclaw

bBeta'd by/b None

bPart 2 of 2/b

textarea style"width: 500px; height: 300px;"

bTitle/b In the graveyard

bWord Count/b 1008

bRating/b PG for some violence

You could almost hear James' voice, but it was quickly supplanted by the voice of your Master. It was time… time to make another sacrifice. Time to give of yourself that he may return to un-life.

You try to move on to the next step as quickly as possible, but the pain is far too sharp to do anything right away. Pain is the way a body tells a mind that it has been pushed too far. Your body… it has been pushed too far. The pain, the loss of blood… you should go into shock, you think, without the aid of a healer. But you can't. Even as he is now, the Dark Lord has enough power to make your life short and far more painful than this. So you force yourself over to the boy, using your remaining hand first to cut him, then to collect the crimson fluid that weeps from his wound, mourning his fate. Then all the ingredients were together, and the transformation can begin.

Unfortunately, this also means you're left to your thoughts, and all your mind wants to focus on is your missing hand. The pain is not quick, as you might have been led to believe, or to hope. Even though you've severed your hand from your arm, you can still feel it, as though it has been reformed out of fire. Your mind tried to ball it into a fist, and believes that it has, even though the only thing that moves is the blood dripping down. The Dark Lord is being reborn, and he has no current need of you. James – no, not James, you remind yourself, it is the son, Harry – watches the process in fascinated horror, leaving you to your pain. And so you cradle that missing flesh as though enough care might return it.

"Robe me."

Tearing your thoughts again from your misery to the needs of your Master, you do as he bids, then allow him to burn your mark to call the others. The ones he will trust to carry out his schemes in the wider world. The ones with power, with the ability to show their faces in public. The ones who aren't supposed to be dead.

The ones who don't feel like they're dying.

Yet.

They port in, shadows in human form, draped in their anonymity until the Dark Lord calls them out, calls them on their failures. This should be a moment of pride for you. You are, after all, the one who helped him regain his form. You might have hidden like a rat, but you never denounced him, and this he remembers – remembers with a silver hand that burns as much as the empty space where the old one had been.

It's wonderful.

Not the pain, no, but that there is something you have gained. There is a strength in it, a strength the hand of flesh and bone never had. For once in your miserable service to the Dark Lord, you have gained something which you can carry forward. Something which can improve your life.

And you pray it is not the last. But it's hard to trust that your life could ever be that lucky.

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